Secretary
Norton Announces $21 Million in Grants
To Support Conservation in 43 States

(WASHINGTON) - Interior Secretary
Gale Norton today announced that the department is awarding $21 million
in challenge cost-share grants under President Bush's Cooperative Conservation
Initiative to complete 377 conservation projects in conjunction with
states, local communities, businesses, landowners and other partners.

The grants from the U.S.
Fish and Wildlife Service, the Bureau of Land Management and the National
Park Service will fund a wide range of conservation projects, from conserving
bighorn sheep in Arizona to protecting bat caves in Missouri to battling
invasive species on a national battlefield in South Carolina.

The projects involve more
than 1,100 partners in 43 states and will conserve, restore or enhance
more than 565,000 acres. Overall funding for the projects totals more
than $52 million, including the matching contributions of partners.

A state-by-state breakout
of the grants announced by Norton today is available at the Interior
Department Web site, www.doi.gov/cci/.

"The goal of the Cooperative
Conservation Initiative is to empower federal land managers to form
partnerships within local communities to better care for the land and
its wildlife," Norton said. "By promoting these partnerships,
we not only leverage federal conservation dollars with private funds
but also tap into the ingenuity and local knowledge of the people who
live and work on the land."

President Bush proposed the
cooperative conservation challenge cost-share grants in 2003 as a tool
for federal land managers to use in creating cooperative conservation
projects. Last year, the three agencies awarded $12.9 million in grants
in 40 states and Puerto Rico. For Fiscal Year 2004, the President proposed
and Congress appropriated an increase of more than $8 million, or 62
percent, in the program.

Overall, the department has
awarded nearly $34 million in grants over the past two years to help
more than 1,900 partners complete 633 projects. These projects have
conserved, restored or enhanced more than 700,000 acres of wildlife
habitat.

In Arizona, for example,
Bureau of Land Management is providing an $11,500 grant to the state
to repair water catchments for desert bighorn sheep. The Arizona Game
and Fish Society and the Arizona Desert Bighorn Sheep Society are contributing
$27,500 to the project, which began last year with a $14,000 Cooperative
Conservation Initiative grant.

In Missouri, the Fish and
Wildlife Service is providing a $24,000 grant to protect and conserve
caves vital to endangered bat species. The partners, which include the
Missouri Department of Conservation, the LAD Foundation, the Missouri
Cave and Karst Conservancy, the Cave Research Foundation and the Missouri
Speleological Society, are matching the grant dollar for dollar. This
expands the work begun last year under a $3,000 grant.

In South Carolina, the National
Park Service is providing $11,200 to inventory, map and treat invasive
non-native plant species at Kings Mountain National Military Park. The
partners that are matching the grant include the Student Conservation
Association and the Kings Mountain Brigade of Friends.

The Cooperative Conservation
Initiative challenge cost-share grants are part of an overall commitment
by the Bush administration to support cooperative conservation efforts.
Over the past three years, the Interior Department has provided more
than $1.3 billion in grants to states, tribes, local governments and
private landowners.

The projects supported by
these grants have restored millions of acres of habitat, removed invasive
exotic species, replanted native grasses, improved riparian habitat
along thousands of miles of streams, conserved limited water resources
and developed conservation plans for endangered species and their habitat.

The President is proposing
to build on this success in his Fiscal Year 2005 budget, which includes
more than $507 million to support Interior's cooperative conservation
programs.

"The power of partnership
produces results for conservation that far exceed the dollars we put
into these partnerships," Norton said. "By empowering citizens,
we are tapping into the greatest conservation resource we have - the
American people themselves - and helping them to become citizen-conservationists."